


Ginnungagap

by tristesses



Category: Journey into Mystery, Thor (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference. Leah, after and from the very beginning. (Spoilers for #645.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ginnungagap

**Author's Note:**

> Because Leah deserves more of an ending, dammit! Also contains considerable Hela, for obvious reasons.
> 
> The title refers to the mythical void that existed prior to the creation of the universe in Norse cosmology, and the summary is a slightly paraphrased quote by Elie Wiesel.

The ancient past, Hela had said. Well, Leah can't say she didn't have advance warning, but she still hadn't expected _this._

There is nothing here. Absolutely nothing, the deepest, blackest, most absent nothingness she could possibly imagine, and then a thousand times emptier than that. Leah floats - but she doesn't. Does she? It's impossible to tell; she, too, is part of the nothing, only a consciousness melting into the yawning void. Soon, like every other lost thing thrown back to the time-before-time, she will be consumed.

No. She refuses. She _refuses_ to be lost, to become one with the nothingness. She is

_Leah of Hel_ , she whispers into the void. _Leah of Hel, and I -_

It's not good enough. A story is a lie, not a life, and a name is but words. What else is there? What does she have, if she has no body, no voice, no soul? Oh, Leah knows.

_As long as there's a heart in my chest, I'll hate you!_

Her heart is gone, devoured by the void, but still Leah hates. She hates, she _hates_ him so, and in the end, only this gives her form and meaning; only her hate for him allows her to exist. It's terribly ironic, and she hates that, too.

****

~

_Hate_. An echo of a word, a word of many shades: the quick breath in the back of the throat, a lover's sigh, a frightened gasp, the birth of a scream; the rolling vowel, one that can be stretched to a laugh or thrust like a sword; finally, the end of the word, the tongue dancing along the hard palate to its inevitable conclusion, the sound soft or cutting or anywhere in between, but always, _always_ deadly.

****

~

When Ymir rises, Leah is there to see it.

She watches with a detached sort of curiosity as he pulls himself from the sudden conflagration of ice and heat in the middle of the void, scrabbling at the sides of the universe as he forces something to come from nothingness. Such stubbornness is at once foreign to Leah and all too familiar; after all, no being could survive here as long as she has without a certain amount of contrariness. Then, from the blistering cauldron whence he came, Ymir wrests a cow - a _cow_ , it's been millennia since Leah has thought of cows - and salt, and from the salt and the cold he makes ice, and he sets the salt lick before the cow and bids her to have at it, for some purpose only he knows.

Around this time, Leah gets bored, and she turns her attention from Ymir and his bovine companion to the north, where the cold wind blows, constant and biting. Drifting, she at last finds her way to its edge, and is vaguely disappointed, though she's not sure what she was expecting; not Jotunheim or another realm like it, though it's certainly cold enough, but something more than these eddies of mist and the freezing silence. Leah presses on, searching for something she has no reason to think exists.

She can't find it like this, insubstantial, little more than wisps of nothing-made-something, so she drags herself from the aether much like Ymir did, clawing her way out of the void, and it hurts exactly as much as she thought it would.

****

~

Though her flesh was made rotting and twisted by the hate that kept her alive, her mind is still bright, and alone in the north, Leah builds herself a world. She molds the mists into lakes and streams, coaxes the cold lumps of matter to make themselves of use, structuring dead forests and spindly castles, rooted deep in the land colder than ice. Occasionally, specters find their way north, and rather than cast them out (and out of what? It's not like this is Leah's home), she builds them shacks from the stone and clay and lets them live there. She'd build them better houses if she were more of an architect, but alas, such things were never high on her list of concerns when she was with - _before._

All of it is more of a way to pass the time than because she really wants to, because Leah has no intention of staying here. She holds on to this belief right up until Odin Borson comes down to her hall and bows before her, presenting her with an all-too-familiar cloak and cowl.

"Lady of the Dead, I bring a gift for thee," he says, and Leah, at last, _understands_. Behind her cold, emotionless mask, she laughs, laughs, laughs. She really should have seen this coming, from the instant she recognized the imprint of Niflheim on the realm she'd created, but either she'd purposefully ignored it or hadn't noticed at all. She's not sure which is worse.

To Odin's face, she only says, "I accept your gift, Allfather," and takes the cloak. When she swings it around her shoulders, her body bursts into vibrant life again, her blackened and twisted right side strengthening and turning milky pale. Leah arranges the headdress until it fans out, silken horns of utter darkness, just like Hela had worn it last time Leah saw her. Hela - oh, this is going to get confusing, isn't it?

"Then you also accept my bargain," Odin says, and there is a cunning gleam in his eye Leah doesn't like.

"What bargain?" she asks suspiciously. Odin grins, and she wants to slap it off his face. She sees the resemblance now; like father, like stepson. Leah clenches her hand in a fist at her side as Odin tells her of his Valhalla, the palace he's built only for the souls he deems worthy, and as for the rest? Well, Leah can take them, the souls of the weak and infirm, the cowards and the elders who die comfortably in their beds. She doesn't want them, but she can't back out now; she took the cloak. That will teach her to take gifts from strange men.

"Fine," she bites out, a fool's capitulation. Odin smiles as he leaves, oh, that _smile_ , and Leah calls after him, "Oh, and Odin?"

He pauses and turns, and Leah steps forward, making sure he can see her.

"Remember one thing," she says quietly, cruelly. She holds out her hand, palm-up. "At the end of things, when Asgard falls and Valhalla with it, _I_ will have your soul." She curls her fingers in a claw as if squeezing a ripe peach, its juices pouring over her fingers to the dead soil at her feet. "Don't offend me again."

****

~

Leah doesn't even _want_ the valiant dead, but on principle, she feels like she ought to take them from Odin. Out of spite, and because there's really nothing else to do.

****

~

"I admire your schemes."

The voice is both familiar and not, and it is surprising enough to make Leah wheel around, turning to stare at the green-eyed boy standing calmly, almost arrogantly, in the middle of her throne room. She says boy; he's closer to a man, she supposes, about the same age she now lets people perceive her to be. 

"Do you?" she asks, and he smiles. That _smile._

"I do," he replies easily. "Tricking the Valkyries into taking the warriors' souls here was genius. In fact, I believe that's something we have in common. Genius, and trickery."

He still wears that same stupid helmet with the little geometric horns. Stupid Loki. Her eyes burn, and she thinks, _It would be so easy_. To touch him, to kill him; the slightest brush of her bare fingers against his skin would mean death, even for a god. She still has time; Loki hasn't taken his name off the books of Hel yet, nor will he for centuries. Leah could kill him, she really could, and the knowledge dizzies her for a moment.

"Take your filthy words elsewhere, Liesmith," she snaps. "I have no use for them here."

His eyes widen, then darken with anger, and Leah thinks, _Now you know how it feels, to be treated like you're nothing but an inconvenience. Now you know._

****

~

The next time she speaks to Loki, he treats her like she's his daughter. It's so remarkably condescending Leah wants to congratulate him for being even more annoying than she thought he could be.

"Really, child," he tuts, and Leah gazes at him, amazed by his audacity. "This is no way to treat your elders."

"I agree completely," she says dryly, and once again, she wonders what would happen if she killed him. Would he just end up reborn again in a new body? Must there always be a Loki to keep the balance of the world steady, just as there must always be a Thor, and a Lady of the Dead?

Probably. Leah sighs internally. Better to leave it alone.

"Fine," she says, interrupting the flow of Loki's poisoned words. "I'll join you. Let's do this."

"Really?" he asks, taken aback. Leah looks up at him, and realizes, with beautiful clarity, _I still hate you._

"Really," she says instead. _I will ruin you_ , she promises. "Now, Frigga asked all the living creatures of the world to swear to never do harm to Balder. All except the youngest, the weakest, the most innocent. Mistletoe."

Loki listens with eager eyes, and Leah tells him, "There is no way you'll get caught."

"None at all?" He really should be more suspicious, but then, what possible reason does Hela of Niflheim have to hurt him?

Just one, but it's more than enough. Leah smiles.

"None at all."

****

~

She takes lovers, over the years. Mortal heroes, fallen gods, though never giants. Why should she not? All beings need company, and even the Queen of the Dead has a heart.

****

~

Loki comes to her in peace and with a bargain on his lips, and in return his name is taken off the books of Hel. Leah finds she doesn't care much at all, other than to note how quickly the years turn; she's dealt Loki so many times now, she's become inured to his presence. Time narrows, sharpens to a point; there are no second chances, no time to turn back. Whether she likes it or not, from here on, everything will fall together, fall into place, and soon - soon -

****

~

If Leah had avoided the strike that took her hand, what would have happened? Would the worlds have been threatened, would Loki have survived without her? Would Leah have existed at all?

****

~

"I concur."

Leah's voice is flat, and her eyes hold the gaze of her younger self. So vehement, so full of righteous anger and betrayal; Leah can't believe she was ever that young. She holds up her hand.

"Leah of Hel will be sent to the ancient past." _Good luck_ , she thinks, as the maw of the portal opens and young Leah falls, falls, floats into nothingness. _May you hate, and do so passionately. It's all that will keep you alive._

Loki, she sees, is crying. She never knew, never even imagined he would feel anything but pride at a scheme well played, but here he is, weeping like a schoolboy. Suddenly, Leah is overcome with pity and something terribly like tenderness. She rises and goes to Loki, her oldest friend, her most hated enemy.

"It's for the best," she says gently. "By the time she grows up, she'll be more than capable of dealing with you."

"Huh?" His brow knits in confusion, and Leah draws back, shaking her head and just barely managing not to roll her eyes. How eloquent. Still the idiot she remembers.

"Think about it, Loki," she advises. "You're a smart boy. I'm sure you're figure it out."

Loki throws up his hands in frustration.

"No time!" he yells, and leaps into the portal as it shifts and twists from one reality to the next. "I've got other things on my mind, Hela!"

Leah watches the portal disappear, and feels the weight of every year she has ever lived on her bones. 

"No," she says to the air. "Loki was never Hela's _father._ "

She should feel something, anything, other than this awful emptiness. Slowly, she walks back to her throne, and sits.

"But for the word made flesh," she whispers, and thinks of Leah, alone in the void, fueled by loathing and self-pity. But here and now, her story is unwritten. Her future is open, the page is blank. Hela's lips curl in a slight, sad smile, and she reaches for a pen. "That was never the only option."


End file.
